Forty Thousand Dollars Demanded to Bring Our Lost Daughter Home
He stopped his retreat, his jaw working silently behind the collar of his slicker. His fingers clutched the red toolbox so tightly that the plastic handle began to creak under the strain.
“The sheriff took the ribbon from your house this morning,” I said, though I knew Deputy Miller was still waiting behind the stone pile with his notebook. “They have the box, too.”
Vince pulled his hands out of his pockets, the red plastic toolbox clattering against the gravel between his boots as he let it go. He reached up and pulled the hood back, his thin, sandy hair sticking to his forehead in damp clumps from the sweat of the walk.
“You have been talking to the police?” he asked, his voice rising to its normal, raspy register, the flat whisper entirely gone. “They do not care about this, Andrew. They never did.”
“We know about the sunflowers, too,” I said.
“The garden was already ruined, Andrew,” he said, his chest heaving under the yellow plastic of the slicker. “The weeds were taking over the back end anyway. I did you a favor.”
